no personal belongings scattered about. Unless I counted the punching bag hanging in the corner and the blue mats tucked against the wall as personal belongings. I didn’t.
A soft cream-colored blanket was folded neatly, draped over the gray couch, picture ready. Not even a stray glass had been left on the kitchen counter, or a dish in the sink. The only room that remotely appeared as if someone lived here was the bedroom, and that was because my suitcases had thrown up my clothes all over the place.
Maybe it was the industrial design that added to the coldness. The cement floors and large metal fans that churned quietly from the exposed metal beams didn’t add any warmth to the open and airy space. Neither did the floor-to-ceiling windows, which had to be tinted, because the sunlight seeping through them didn’t make me want to poke my eyeballs out.
I would go stir-crazy if I was the only person who lived here.
That was what I was thinking about—real important stuff—when I felt the sudden burst of warmth in my chest.
“What in the world?” I whispered to the empty space. The warmth flared.
Was I having a heart attack? Okay. That was stupid for a multitude of reasons. I rubbed my chest. Maybe it was indigestion or the beginnings of an ulce—
Wait.
I lowered the glass. What I felt was an echo of my own heart, and I suddenly knew what it was. Holy granola bar, it was the bond—it was Zayne, and he was close.
I now had Zayne radar, and that was a little—or a lot—super freaking weird.
I started to bite on my thumbnail, but picked up my OJ instead, finishing it off with two loud, obnoxious gulps. My heart rate kicked up at the ding of the elevator arriving, and my gaze swung toward the steel elevator doors as I filled with nervous energy. I put the glass down before I dropped it. Every time I saw Zayne, it was like seeing him for the first time all over again, but it wasn’t just that.
I’d cried all over Zayne last night—like, all over him.
Heat crept up the back of my neck. I wasn’t a crier, and until the night before, I’d been starting to believe that I had faulty tear ducts. Unfortunately those tear ducts were fully functioning. There’d been a lot of ugly, snotty sobs.
The door slid open, and the anxious energy exploded in my stomach as Zayne walked in.
Damn.
He made a plain white T-shirt and dark denim jeans look like they were tailor-made for him and only him. The material stretched across his wide shoulders and chest yet was fitted to his narrow, tapered waist. All Wardens were large in their human form, but Zayne was one of the largest I’d ever seen, coming in around six and a half feet.
Zayne had beautiful thick blond hair with the kind of natural wave I couldn’t recreate with hours to spare, a YouTube tutorial and a dozen curling irons. Today it was tucked back in a knot at the nape of his neck, and I hoped to God that he never cut his hair.
He saw me immediately, and even though I couldn’t see his eyes from where I sat, I could feel his gaze on me. It was somehow heavy and gentle, and sent a fine shiver of awareness dancing down my arms, making me grateful that I wasn’t holding on to the glass any longer.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he said as the elevator door slid shut behind him. “Glad to see you up and moving about.”
“Sorry I slept so late.” I lifted my hands and then dropped them back to my lap, unsure what to do with them. He was carrying some kind of paper rolled up and tucked under one arm and a brown paper sack in his other hand. “Do you need help with any of that?” I asked, even though that was a dumb question considering Zayne could lift a Ford Explorer with one hand.
“Nah. And don’t apologize. You needed the rest.” His features were blurry to me, even with my glasses on, but they became clearer and sharper with every step he took toward me.
My gaze skittered away, but that didn’t stop me from knowing what he looked like.
Which was utterly, breathtakingly, brutally beautiful. I could come up with more adjectives to describe him, but in all honesty, none would do him justice.
His skin was a golden hue that had nothing to do with being in the sun. High, broad